John keys



NITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JOHN KEYS, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

POLISHING COMPOUND.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 269,679, dated December 26, 1882.

I Application filed November 14, 1882. (No specimens.) I

To all whom tit may concern:

Be it known that 1, JOHN KEYS, of the city, county, and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Polishing Compounds; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

This invention is in the nature of an improved polishing compound; and theinvention consists in the combination of magnesia or magnesite with any suitable hard grease or wax, and making the same into convenient form for use.

It is well known that brass and other metals are mostly polished by rouge or a powdered oxide of iron, either in the form of a dry powder or coni pounded with some fatty substance. The preparation of this rouge for polishing requires careful treatment and an expensive process to render it fit for the desired purpose. A serious objection to the employmentof rouge polishing-powder is that, when used, it packs tightly into the engraved or other ornamented surfaces thatare being polished, where its color renders it conspicuous, making the article in the places named look dirty unless, by repeated and careful washing, it be removed from the places where it had lodged, and these repeated brnshings and washings tend to remove to some extent the fine'polished surface which the rouge hasproduced. Still, as before stated, this rouge is mainly employed for the purpose of polishing, not only because of the facility with which it polishes, but because, also, it imparts to the thing polished-as, for instance silver-a good color, which is one ot' the requisites of a good polishing-powder.

Many other powders-such as whiting-are also employed to some extent for polishing silver and other metals; but these other powders do not leave the surface they have polished with what is known as a good color. Therefore it is important that a polishingpowder shall easily produce a polished surface, and it left in the interstices of the ornamented surface it will not be unsightly, and can be rewax substance-snch as stearine aralfine ozocerite, hard tallow, or wax, or any other similar analogous hard grease or waxy material--and form this compound of magnesia into bars or any convenient shape, so that the magnesia can be applied to the face of a buif- 7 wheel with facility. When this polishing compoundis applied to such a wheel and the wheel revolved, and the thing to be polished brought in contact with its face, a beautiful smooth luster is at once produced upon the surface of the metal that is being polished, and this luster has a soft attractive color not produced by any other polishing material or compound knownto me; and should any of the polishing compound remain or be caught by the ornamented surface, it can be easily removed, if desired; and it not, the compound being white renders its presence unconspicuous, and not, as when rouge or other similar powders are used, conspicuous and unsightly.

It is found best in practice to first calcine the magnesia, to remove from it any trace of sulphuricacid that may be in the mineral.

Having now described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

A polishing compound consisting of magnesia or magnesiteincorporated with a hard fatty or waxy substance, as and for the purpose described.

JOHN KEYS. -Witnesses:

G. M.--PLYMPTON, JNo. N. BRUNS- 

